ABIT: Losing its Luster?

Dyre Straits · Jun 2, 2005, 03:02 AM

I'm finding it more difficult to locate newer ABIT boards in our area. The only supplier that seems to carry much of a selection is Micro Center. Fry's has one or two, but that's about it.

I hate to see this happening to ABIT as I've been using their boards for a few years now and really like them.

ASUS seems to be taking over the #1 spot.

Tipstaff · Jun 2, 2005, 05:43 AM

Abit and MSI both took the brunt of the 'bad capactior' scandle. More so because they were the front runners denying there was a problem. The spotlight was right on them when the 'truth' got revealed, and boy.. did they ever get hammered. Although Abit was one of the first ones to offer a replacement program for bad boards I think it was too late to recover from. Their reputation hasn't been the same since. Abit has some good boards out there, but they also haven't done any 'standout' boards to get market attention like Asus and DFI have. These are the ones suppliers stock the most of. Until Abit has a 'standout' product they'll only drop further down the list.

How the hell is MSI still around is the big quesiton of the day. These guys not only kept denying there was a problem long after it was proven to be true, but they tried to side step the issue repeatedly, and tried to get out of having to replace faulty boards. <sigh> Oh yeah, have you taken a look at recent MSI boards, btw? First thing you will notice is that on anything but their primiere boards they are using capacitors from the same company again. Got to admire the cahones on these guys. Thankfully I'm one of those dealers who give to $#!^s what I sell my customers. MSI should be ashamed.

-Tip

Dyre Straits · Jun 2, 2005, 06:07 AM

Yeah, one thing I notice when I walk through MicroCenter: On the Return table, there are several MSI boards that can be had for next to nothing. These are boards that have been returned for replacement and have been 'checked out' by MicroCenter and supposedly still in working condition.

I was fortunate that my BE6-II worked for so long without trouble. My son had one that lasted a year less than mine. He replaced it with another ABIT board: TH-7, that uses RAMBUS. He's had it for about 3 years or so now and it's still working just fine.

I have an ABIT BD-7 in my second system and, of course, the IC7-G in my main rig.

digerati · Jun 2, 2005, 08:24 AM

MSI and IWILL (If IWILL Still Exists) are both brands of boards I will neeeever go near again. Abit I'll give some faith to, but I trust Asus a lot more in terms of brand recognition.

CDsDontBurn · Jun 2, 2005, 09:07 AM

ABIT has been making good quality boards, but until this last year, their quality on their MoBos has really degraded. And the of the boards that they do make, i am finding them hard and more difficult to find.

MSI boards I like. I have used several of their MoBos in my systems and they worked perfectly fine for me and other people i've built systems for.

ASUS boards are OK I guess. I've never used one myself, but I know the features is what one looks for in MoBos, and ASUS offers plenty of them. From what i've heard of friends and some customers is that the BIOSes they use are verty difficult to understand and/or use. I'll still give ASUS a shot someday in the future

.

ePox MoBos are awesome. I've had one, and it did really well on a performance stand point. It could have done better, but mine was an early revision and didn't perform well above 200FSB.

I understand that I will one day buy a board or two that are bad, but I'm not going to ever buy one brand of MoBos only because one board was DOA.

Rayder · Jun 2, 2005, 11:54 AM

We've had a lot of trouble finding Abit m/b's locally around here too. We've ALWAYS used Abit m/b's and have only had one lame one in the multitudes that we've bought...the NF7S. That board was just plain wonky. Naturally it had an nVidia chipset in it, which we immediately assumed was the cause of all it's ridiculous problems.

We just get our Abit m/b's through Newegg now.

Tipstaff · Jun 2, 2005, 09:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ^_^

MSI and IWILL (If IWILL Still Exists) are both brands of boards I will neeeever go near again. Abit I'll give some faith to, but I trust Asus a lot more in terms of brand recognition.

IWill.. Jezuz.. there's a name that still haunts me to this day.. right up there with Alton, Epox, Soyo, FIC, and PCChips. <shiver>

BTW: IWill is still around. I recently saw a writeup on one of their new Dual Opteron boards. They were showing it off at Computex '05, and it's a Dual Opteron SLI board 1/2 the size of a micro-ATX. Take a looksee HERE.

Oh God, I think I'm gonna be sick....

-Tip

CDsDontBurn · Jun 2, 2005, 10:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tipstaff

IWill.. Jezuz.. there's a name that still haunts me to this day.. right up there with Alton, Epox, Soyo, FIC, and PCChips. <shiver>

BTW: IWill is still around. I recently saw a writeup on one of their new Dual Opteron boards. They were showing it off at Computex '05, and it's a Dual Opteron SLI board 1/2 the size of a micro-ATX. Take a looksee HERE.

Oh God, I think I'm gonna be sick....

-Tip

hahahahaah....that thing is freakin' awesome!!! lol.

No_Style · Jun 2, 2005, 11:19 PM

I was never a big fan of MSI boards, nor A-Bit. ASUS fan for as long as I've been using a PC. (Pentium 120 MHz) Since we're on the topic of mobo manufacturer's and their credibility/lustre. How is DFI? Recently, their NF4 boards have been praised by a fair amount of critics and users.

kelticknight · Jun 2, 2005, 11:48 PM

been fan of abit boards for a while,if l was not going abit,would go asus

Dyre Straits · Jun 3, 2005, 12:03 AM

The very first PC I owned, an AST DX33 Pro, had a DFI board in it.

It was a 33 MHz board and I put a Pentium Overdrive in it to boost it to 100 MHz. Boy, that brings back some memories! LOL!

thaerin · Jun 3, 2005, 12:46 AM

I pretty much lost all interest in Abit ever since they started the Fata1ity branded boards. It wouldn't be bad if they lived up to the hype, but for the premium they charge, you'd think there'd be more bells and whistles involved. As it stands, you get the same options you'd find in other manufacturers boards except that it's all packaged on a read PCB. Yeah, that's really, uh, worth it ... pffft. Pass thanks.

Actually, I lost some interest a little before that after the entire IC7 fiasco (VDIMM vs VTT tracking). Abit has always geared their products towards extremists and for them to cop out and say they were just following Intel spec was just pure BS. Add on top of that the onboard audio bugs with the MAX II and I felt quite a bit let down from the company who'd gained my trust and last three motherboard purchases.

Lowfat · Jun 3, 2005, 02:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by thaerin

I pretty much lost all interest in Abit ever since they started the Fata1ity branded boards. It wouldn't be bad if they lived up to the hype, but for the premium they charge, you'd think there'd be more bells and whistles involved. As it stands, you get the same options you'd find in other manufacturers boards except that it's all packaged on a read PCB. Yeah, that's really, uh, worth it ... pffft. Pass thanks.

Actually, I lost some interest a little before that after the entire IC7 fiasco (VDIMM vs VTT tracking). Abit has always geared their products towards extremists and for them to cop out and say they were just following Intel spec was just pure BS. Add on top of that the onboard audio bugs with the MAX II and I felt quite a bit let down from the company who'd gained my trust and last three motherboard purchases.

the Fatal1ty does have good onboard sound

but thats about it.

Tipstaff · Jun 3, 2005, 02:25 AM

Until I started selling Intel made boards I was always selling AOpen & Asus. AOpens AP5TC (Socket7), and AX6Bx (Slot 1) series were by far the most stablest boards I ever had the pleasure of working with. No problems what-so-ever with them. Infact, I still run systems with those boards at the store. Same could be said for Asus and their P2B/P3B line. If anyone remembers these were the boards you had to own if you were a Slot1 overclocker (Asus P2B and a Celeron 266mhz or 300mhz processor.. what a combo). Just fracking awesome.

AOpen still makes top quality boards, but they don't innovate squat. They just make good quality boards... um.. as long as they are based on an Intel chipset that is.

Asus.. well.. what can be said for them. They came out of the scandel just fine.. better than fine infact. Both Intel and AOpen were the only ones that didn't use those cheapass, crap capacitors, but Asus.. they just came out smelling like roses. Probably the only company, other than Intel, that I have any sort of respect for. They really know how to treat their customers. Usually, for cheap systems I use boards from their sister company, Asrock. Not the greatest, but you have to take what you can get.

-Tip

Zelig · Jun 3, 2005, 03:04 AM

Yeah, AOpen makes real nice boards, I've got my Athlon XP rig running on an AK79D-400 Max board, which I've had no problems with at all.

kelticknight · Jun 3, 2005, 04:12 PM

next board will probly be a asus

**dj_stick** · Jun 6, 2005, 10:32 PM

one brand i haven't heard mentioned here yet is gigabyte

my last two motherboards have been gigabyte and i've had very little trouble

Yousaif · Jun 7, 2005, 06:35 AM

I've always had good experiences with Abit. I'm currently running an NF7-S V2 with no problem. The very first box I built had an Abit BH-6 with a P2 450. I've used a few in between and had no issues with them.

Gigabyte has always been a solid performer for me too. I've heard mixed reviews from others on them.

By far and away the worst mobo mfr that I have had the displeasure of dealing with has been Chaintech. Between their sub par parts and their non-exitent tech support they have soured me on ever doing business with them again.

-Yousaif

Tabs · Jun 11, 2005, 12:59 PM

I think it has something to do with Oskar Wu (designer of the amazing NF7-S I'm still using) leaving the company to go work for DFI. As soon as that happened, Abit boards started going downhill and DFI's reputation started going way up...

El Kapitano · Jun 11, 2005, 05:47 PM

Abit's management got caned last year for very serious dodgy accountancy practises to the extent their stock got frozen etc. I don't think they've recovered yet and I bet their R&D budget took the brunt of any cut backs.

Tip- It wasn't the capacitor manufacturers fault (per se) more the fault of the manufacturer of the water based electrolyte that was used in the low esr caps these companies made. As many as 16 manufacturers were supplied with the faulty electrolyte which apparently stemmed from the theft and use of an incomplete recipe for the electrolyte. What is unforgiveable however was the stand some of these companies took as the problem came to light denying culpibility and blaming it on overclocking, voltage surges, overheating etc.

As far as this faulty capacitor thing being a distant problem, my Asus K8V Deluxe was subject to a recall for faulty caps late 2003/early 2004.

Necrosis · Jun 11, 2005, 07:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by El Kapitano

my Asus K8V Deluxe was subject to a recall for faulty caps late 2003/early 2004.

Wow how often do you hear of a company doing that?

waterloo · Jun 20, 2005, 05:14 AM

ABIT has gone DOWN.

waterloo · Jun 20, 2005, 05:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tabs

I think it has something to do with Oskar Wu (designer of the amazing NF7-S I'm still using) leaving the company to go work for DFI. As soon as that happened, Abit boards started going downhill and DFI's reputation started going way up...

YOU SURE?

I Keep Close Eye On DFI, and It Looks To Me That When The AMD 64 Mobo Come Out, The Quality Very Nice. Dun't Think It Was Because Of Oskar Wu.

toddsmack2k · Jun 20, 2005, 07:32 PM

ABIT took a knock with the capacitors popping. They still make good MB's in my opinion but need to work extra hard to get thier quality back like it should be. My personal preference are ASUS, Gigabyte or ABIT MB's

The_Neon_Cowboy · Jun 20, 2005, 08:05 PM

abit has taken a beating for thier low quilty and poor support in the past. I'm supprised they havn't went under yet. I've owed many brands but never an abit... to much bad stuff and their "Fataility" aproch to try to sell goes doen't impress me either.

asus etc... have been the norm for putting out good / the best stuff

Lowfat · Jun 22, 2005, 12:27 AM

My first and only Abit board was crap. It was a KD7. The onboard sound was crap, only 2 channels out of the 5 worked right, the onboard lan wouldn't work. it was the worst overclocking board i have ever used to date also.

Jun 2, 2005, 05:43 AM	#2
Tipstaff HardwareHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Real capital of Canada: Torauna Posts: 6,773 Rep Power: 190 System Specs	Abit and MSI both took the brunt of the 'bad capactior' scandle. More so because they were the front runners denying there was a problem. The spotlight was right on them when the 'truth' got revealed, and boy.. did they ever get hammered. Although Abit was one of the first ones to offer a replacement program for bad boards I think it was too late to recover from. Their reputation hasn't been the same since. Abit has some good boards out there, but they also haven't done any 'standout' boards to get market attention like Asus and DFI have. These are the ones suppliers stock the most of. Until Abit has a 'standout' product they'll only drop further down the list. How the hell is MSI still around is the big quesiton of the day. These guys not only kept denying there was a problem long after it was proven to be true, but they tried to side step the issue repeatedly, and tried to get out of having to replace faulty boards. <sigh> Oh yeah, have you taken a look at recent MSI boards, btw? First thing you will notice is that on anything but their primiere boards they are using capacitors from the same company again. Got to admire the cahones on these guys. Thankfully I'm one of those dealers who give to $#!^s what I sell my customers. MSI should be ashamed. -Tip __________________ Portal: The Flash Version _________________________________ Brain: So, you sacked the cocky khaki Kicky Sack sock plucker? Mr. Sackett: The second cocky khaki Kicky Sack sock plucker I've sacked since the sixth sitting sheet slitter got sick.

Jun 2, 2005, 09:07 AM	#5
CDsDontBurn Lurking DriverHeaven Join Date: May 2003 Location: Southern California Posts: 22,779 Rep Power: 235 System Specs	ABIT has been making good quality boards, but until this last year, their quality on their MoBos has really degraded. And the of the boards that they do make, i am finding them hard and more difficult to find. MSI boards I like. I have used several of their MoBos in my systems and they worked perfectly fine for me and other people i've built systems for. ASUS boards are OK I guess. I've never used one myself, but I know the features is what one looks for in MoBos, and ASUS offers plenty of them. From what i've heard of friends and some customers is that the BIOSes they use are verty difficult to understand and/or use. I'll still give ASUS a shot someday in the future . ePox MoBos are awesome. I've had one, and it did really well on a performance stand point. It could have done better, but mine was an early revision and didn't perform well above 200FSB. I understand that I will one day buy a board or two that are bad, but I'm not going to ever buy one brand of MoBos only because one board was DOA. __________________ Her First Day \| A year later

Jun 2, 2005, 11:19 PM	#9
No_Style Styleless Wonder Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Ottawa, Ontario Posts: 6,034 Rep Power: 0	I was never a big fan of MSI boards, nor A-Bit. ASUS fan for as long as I've been using a PC. (Pentium 120 MHz) Since we're on the topic of mobo manufacturer's and their credibility/lustre. How is DFI? Recently, their NF4 boards have been praised by a fair amount of critics and users. __________________ "The Best Style Is No Style" Specifications Here

Jun 2, 2005, 11:48 PM	#10
kelticknight DriverHeaven Knight Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: EIRE{great for black stuff ,bulmers cider and Munster rubgy Posts: 1,095 Rep Power: 0	been fan of abit boards for a while,if l was not going abit,would go asus __________________

Jun 3, 2005, 12:46 AM	#12
thaerin DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: 127.0.0.1 Posts: 41 Rep Power: 0	I pretty much lost all interest in Abit ever since they started the Fata1ity branded boards. It wouldn't be bad if they lived up to the hype, but for the premium they charge, you'd think there'd be more bells and whistles involved. As it stands, you get the same options you'd find in other manufacturers boards except that it's all packaged on a read PCB. Yeah, that's really, uh, worth it ... pffft. Pass thanks. Actually, I lost some interest a little before that after the entire IC7 fiasco (VDIMM vs VTT tracking). Abit has always geared their products towards extremists and for them to cop out and say they were just following Intel spec was just pure BS. Add on top of that the onboard audio bugs with the MAX II and I felt quite a bit let down from the company who'd gained my trust and last three motherboard purchases. __________________ "I can't give you a sure-fire formula for success, but I can give you a formula for failure: try to please everybody all the time." - Herbert Bayard Swope

Jun 2, 2005, 08:24 AM	#4
digerati Everyones life has worth Join Date: May 2003 Location: My Yellow Bug Posts: 3,779 Rep Power: 0	MSI and IWILL (If IWILL Still Exists) are both brands of boards I will neeeever go near again. Abit I'll give some faith to, but I trust Asus a lot more in terms of brand recognition.

Jun 2, 2005, 11:54 AM	#6
Rayder Mostly lurking lately.... Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: U.S.A. Posts: 2,161 Rep Power: 73	We've had a lot of trouble finding Abit m/b's locally around here too. We've ALWAYS used Abit m/b's and have only had one lame one in the multitudes that we've bought...the NF7S. That board was just plain wonky. Naturally it had an nVidia chipset in it, which we immediately assumed was the cause of all it's ridiculous problems. We just get our Abit m/b's through Newegg now.

Jun 3, 2005, 02:25 AM	#14
Tipstaff HardwareHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Real capital of Canada: Torauna Posts: 6,773 Rep Power: 190 System Specs	Until I started selling Intel made boards I was always selling AOpen & Asus. AOpens AP5TC (Socket7), and AX6Bx (Slot 1) series were by far the most stablest boards I ever had the pleasure of working with. No problems what-so-ever with them. Infact, I still run systems with those boards at the store. Same could be said for Asus and their P2B/P3B line. If anyone remembers these were the boards you had to own if you were a Slot1 overclocker (Asus P2B and a Celeron 266mhz or 300mhz processor.. what a combo). Just fracking awesome. AOpen still makes top quality boards, but they don't innovate squat. They just make good quality boards... um.. as long as they are based on an Intel chipset that is. Asus.. well.. what can be said for them. They came out of the scandel just fine.. better than fine infact. Both Intel and AOpen were the only ones that didn't use those cheapass, crap capacitors, but Asus.. they just came out smelling like roses. Probably the only company, other than Intel, that I have any sort of respect for. They really know how to treat their customers. Usually, for cheap systems I use boards from their sister company, Asrock. Not the greatest, but you have to take what you can get. -Tip __________________ Portal: The Flash Version _________________________________ Brain: So, you sacked the cocky khaki Kicky Sack sock plucker? Mr. Sackett: The second cocky khaki Kicky Sack sock plucker I've sacked since the sixth sitting sheet slitter got sick.

Jun 3, 2005, 03:04 AM	#15
Zelig HardwareHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Canada Posts: 3,187 Rep Power: 71 System Specs	Yeah, AOpen makes real nice boards, I've got my Athlon XP rig running on an AK79D-400 Max board, which I've had no problems with at all. __________________ --

Jun 3, 2005, 04:12 PM	#16
kelticknight DriverHeaven Knight Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: EIRE{great for black stuff ,bulmers cider and Munster rubgy Posts: 1,095 Rep Power: 0	next board will probly be a asus __________________

Jun 7, 2005, 06:35 AM	#18
Yousaif Allergic to WiFi Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Wyoming, MI, USA Posts: 852 Rep Power: 0	I've always had good experiences with Abit. I'm currently running an NF7-S V2 with no problem. The very first box I built had an Abit BH-6 with a P2 450. I've used a few in between and had no issues with them. Gigabyte has always been a solid performer for me too. I've heard mixed reviews from others on them. By far and away the worst mobo mfr that I have had the displeasure of dealing with has been Chaintech. Between their sub par parts and their non-exitent tech support they have soured me on ever doing business with them again. -Yousaif

Jun 11, 2005, 12:59 PM	#19
Tabs DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Oct 2004 Posts: 26 Rep Power: 0	I think it has something to do with Oskar Wu (designer of the amazing NF7-S I'm still using) leaving the company to go work for DFI. As soon as that happened, Abit boards started going downhill and DFI's reputation started going way up...

Jun 11, 2005, 05:47 PM	#20
El Kapitano Most of the 7 dwarfs in 1 Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Rochdale, Lancashire Posts: 947 Rep Power: 0	Abit's management got caned last year for very serious dodgy accountancy practises to the extent their stock got frozen etc. I don't think they've recovered yet and I bet their R&D budget took the brunt of any cut backs. Tip- It wasn't the capacitor manufacturers fault (per se) more the fault of the manufacturer of the water based electrolyte that was used in the low esr caps these companies made. As many as 16 manufacturers were supplied with the faulty electrolyte which apparently stemmed from the theft and use of an incomplete recipe for the electrolyte. What is unforgiveable however was the stand some of these companies took as the problem came to light denying culpibility and blaming it on overclocking, voltage surges, overheating etc. As far as this faulty capacitor thing being a distant problem, my Asus K8V Deluxe was subject to a recall for faulty caps late 2003/early 2004.

Jun 20, 2005, 05:14 AM	#22
waterloo Join Date: Oct 2004 Posts: 337 Rep Power: 0	ABIT has gone DOWN. __________________ Motherboard: DFI Lan Party UT nF4 Ultra-D Modded to SLI Bios: 07/06/05 (File name - 704-2bt) CPU Cooler: Aritc Freezer 64 CPU: AMD 64 3800 Memory: OCZ 2GB Graphics Processor: ASUS EN6200GE Hard Drives: 2 X 160 IDE Western Digital, 320 SATA, 16GB SCSI Power Supply: Enermax Noisetaker 480 Watt Case:Antec CS600 Tower Case Sound Card: M-Audio Revolution 7.1/SB LIVE/SB X-FI Optical Drive: 2 X LG GSA-4167B

Jun 20, 2005, 07:32 PM	#24
toddsmack2k It Never..... Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Kentucky Posts: 3,173 Rep Power: 0	ABIT took a knock with the capacitors popping. They still make good MB's in my opinion but need to work extra hard to get thier quality back like it should be. My personal preference are ASUS, Gigabyte or ABIT MB's __________________ [color=blue]*Bleeding From the Inside Pouring Out, The* *DriverHeaven* Spiral, We Shall Never Let Go Of.[/color]

Jun 20, 2005, 08:05 PM	#25
The_Neon_Cowboy HardwareHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: U.S.A. Posts: 16,009 Rep Power: 92 System Specs	abit has taken a beating for thier low quilty and poor support in the past. I'm supprised they havn't went under yet. I've owed many brands but never an abit... to much bad stuff and their "Fataility" aproch to try to sell goes doen't impress me either. asus etc... have been the norm for putting out good / the best stuff __________________

Jun 22, 2005, 12:27 AM	#26
Lowfat Xtreme Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: Grande Prairie, AB, Can Posts: 4,254 Rep Power: 101	My first and only Abit board was crap. It was a KD7. The onboard sound was crap, only 2 channels out of the 5 worked right, the onboard lan wouldn't work. it was the worst overclocking board i have ever used to date also. __________________